


Long Ago and Far Away

by churchkey



Series: Long Ago and Far Away (Canon Winnix) [1]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Blow Jobs, Canon, First Kiss, First Time with a guy, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Masturbation, Pre-Canon, Slow Burn, handjobs, they'll literally be in their bunk, troop ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:27:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23671558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/churchkey/pseuds/churchkey
Summary: A few scenes exploring how Dick and Lew became the timeless cosmic lovers they were born to be.First in a 6-part series, though each can be read as a stand-alone. It's all just part of the same relationship timeline.
Relationships: Lewis Nixon/Richard Winters
Series: Long Ago and Far Away (Canon Winnix) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1739950
Comments: 22
Kudos: 86





	Long Ago and Far Away

**Author's Note:**

> _All I longed for, long ago, was you_
> 
> "Long Ago and Far Away", Ira Gershwin/Jerome Kern

**Part I**

Nix slapped the concrete pillar at the top of the hill with a pained grunt and promptly collapsed onto the dirt.

“Get up, come on,” Dick said breathlessly. “It’s three miles back down.”

Covering his eyes with his forearm, Lew waved him away. “I’ll catch up with you later. Tomorrow,” he mumbled. “Someday.”

Hands on his hips, Dick looked down at him a moment before dropping down to join him on the ground.

“We did longer runs at OCS,” he said in that lofty way that sounded merely frank to anyone who wasn’t Lewis Nixon.

“Not up a goddamn mountain,” Nix complained. “I am never doing this again.”

“That so?” Dick began to smile in spite of his disapproval. 

Nix sighed and sat up, leaning back on the heels of his palms.

“I think Battalion should be able to find some ways of filling my time that are more germane to my line of duty.”

Dick’s eyes raked up and down his face, sizing him up like he did everything, except Lew was sure the little lift at the corner of his cupid’s bow lips wasn’t there when he looked at everything. Just him.

“Is _that_ so?” Dick repeated, amused now. 

Nix looked back at him with the same scrutiny.

“Yes, Dick,” he deadpanned. “I’m above this proletariat physical labor.”

They laughed identical little huffs through their noses, shoulders shaking lazily, shaking off dialects and other distinctions, even silver bars. 

Dick looked out across the landscape, taking in the wide expanse of green and the barracks below.

“How long are we going to be here?” he asked before looking down to pluck a blade of grass.

“I don’t know,” Lew shrugged. “I’ve only been S2 for a few days.”

“Well what do you know?” Dick concentrated on aligning the blade between the knuckles of his thumbs. “I mean, that you can tell me about.”

“Maps,” he nodded, and began pulling clumps of grass from the dirt. “Seen a lot of maps.”

Dick brought his thumbs to his lips and blew through the space between them. A high, reedy note issued boldly from his clasped hands, the blade of grass vibrating against the force of his breath. 

Lew’s head whipped toward him, his brow furrowed deeply in bemused confusion. Dick smiled. 

“Can you do that?”

“What - " His eyes shifted from Dick's mouth to his hands, and there was genuine wonder in his voice. "How'd you do that?" 

Dick leaned toward him to show him where to hold the blade of grass, where to blow, and like they had so many times before, their bodies touched, warm skin rejoicing under a thin layer of white cotton as it pressed against hard rounds of biceps, as they felt each other’s warmth, felt the dampness of each other's sweat. Each allowed a part of himself to love it wholly and selfishly, even while the other part diminished the significance of the touch until it no longer registered. 

But there would always be that first ecstatic response, and it would always want more; they didn't know at the time how much of this they shared. 

_If only…_ Lew would lament much later. _A whole year, more, wasted. Gone._

But on that hot afternoon, blowing their grass trumpets until they were lightheaded and giddy with the effort and the laughter, it didn’t feel like they were wasting anything.

***

**Part II**

The most surprising thing about it wasn’t the occasion or the setting, or even the characters, though he’d be remiss if he ignored how remarkable these were in their own right. The most unlikely part involved the roles themselves, and how they were cast into them. 

An arm around his waist – was it holding him up or pulling him near?

“Well, it’s not hopeless,” Dick said, his face lit by the warm glow of lamplight. “You’re not the worst partner I’ve ever had.”

The boots on Nix’s feet shuffled a clumsy path from the door to his bunk. Had he asked Dick to dance? Or had Dick asked him?

“And here we are.” Dick stopped them at the foot of Lew’s bed. “I guess this is goodnight.”

“So soon?”

He was beginning to sober; he became more keenly aware of his arm wrapped around Dick’s neck.

“Dad says nothing good happens after midnight anyway,” Dick murmured frankly.

“Hm.” A wide, closed-eyed grin spread slowly across Lew’s face. “Did you have a nice time at the Officer’s Club, lieutenant?”

“Terrible,” Dick deadpanned. “But the company was nice.”

Nix opened his eyes and dropped his head back. “You didn't? I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” Dick laughed at him, which was his first clue that the man was humoring him. Or something like that. 

“I don’t know,” Nix shrugged. “I thought it was alright.”

“You complained the whole time you had no one to dance with.”

“Did I?” Lew’s eyebrows arched in delight. A-ha, they seemed to say. One mystery solved.

“Well I didn’t. That was true.”

But it didn’t explain why the starched and pressed seams of Dick’s dress greens were so artfully aligned with his, their bodies touching from chest to pelvis. It felt like Dick squeezed his hand and he swiveled his head to confirm it. He hadn’t realized they were holding hands.

“Cinderella ought to be in bed," Dick said quietly, and began swaying them again.

Lew chuckled and let Dick lead him in a slow circle.

“Dare I ask which one of us is Cinderella?” 

The dance came to a stop. Dick gazed at him for a long moment that became heavier with each passing second. It was as though the ticking of clocks had been silenced briefly, and that he and Dick had found a flaw in the fabric and somehow slipped through, out of time. 

Dick swallowed. The ghost of a smile fluttered over his mouth.

“Nobody.”

His brow wrinkled faintly as he dropped his face toward Lew’s and kissed him.

Dick. Kissed _him._

It was over quickly, but Lew still felt the warm, firm press of strange lips on his as he fell asleep. By morning, he was sober, and something had changed between them. He hadn’t seen the signpost, but he knew they were in a new country now, one whose hills and hedgerows they’d each commit to memory long before they'd reached its outer limits.

***

**Part III**

Why him?

Dick sometimes asked himself, usually late at night, but sometimes during the light of day too. Like when the muted morning sun crept through the bare windows of his quarters, leaving only the fullness of his erection as a memento of dreams he’d spend all day trying not to think about and all night trying to repeat.

But why him? What was so exceptional about Lewis Nixon that made Dick dream these things? He thought he understood sex; he’d had it, anyway, and it had seemed pretty simple at the time. He was realizing now that desire was like a river. Deep in some places, unpredictable, and always changing. With the girls it was barely a trickle. But Nix.

Oh, _Nix…_

His desire for Nix was a freshet. Dick got aroused just thinking of the sound all that churning, crashing water. 

And thinking and dreaming were all he could do until that night when he'd watched Lew slowly get drunk, grinning at him with such tender affection that Dick couldn’t help but grin back, drawn into that charismatic orbit. He'd kissed him that night, and something deep within each of them began to thaw.

It started slowly like that. 

The next time they found themselves some privacy, they tentatively embraced. Chests, torsos pressed together, arms splayed across broad backs, hands roving over shoulders, ribs, hips. Dick was nervous; Lew even more so. Dick rubbed his cheek against Lew’s, his brow along Lew’s, and then, with a timid laugh, their mouths came together again.

It was an intentional courtship, every action deliberate, the result of a conscious decision on the part of both men. _Alright, we're doing this_ , they seemed to agree. _We will be this for each other._

One night as they lay in their bunks, Nix turned to face Dick. Bending one leg, he pushed the blanket down past his hips and in the low light, Dick’s eyes strained to adjust to the sight: Lew’s hand slowly stroking the length of his hard cock. His face was solemn but his eyes burned through the darkness. Dick mirrored his position and just watched him, frozen in place by a wild desire to cross the two feet between them and lay his body down beside his. If he moved one inch, he feared he wouldn't be able to stop himself, so he just lay there, watching. It only lasted a few minutes, but the pleasure that twisted Lew’s face – the clenched jaw, the deep crease between his brows, finally the wide-open mouth and scrunched eyes when he came – these stayed with Dick for much longer. 

He wondered if he could make Nix feel that good himself, if he could touch him in such a way that he’d feel the ghost of his hands on his body all day long and make him need his touch like a drowning man needs air. Could he tap something so deep inside that Lew hadn’t even known it was there? And after, would he marvel that he'd ever lived without it? Were there nights that he lay awake asking himself the same questions that had tormented Dick? 

They had time to find out, but Dick didn’t know how much. The sense of urgency only made the current stronger.

***

 **Part IV**

The night they got their jumpwings was one of the hottest of the summer. The men wiped their shining brows all night, sweating through their wool dress greens, but were in general too excited to let it get in the way of their carousing. The heat had a different effect on Dick. The heavy, humid air gave dimension to the looks Nix kept shooting his way, a feeling that became more palpable the closer together they stood. Wearing a countenance of stone, Dick returned the glances, until eventually their eyes, oblivious to the celebration, carried on a conversation all on their own.

_Now?_

_Not yet._

_When?_

_Soon. I promise._

At least, that’s what Dick heard. It had been exactly one week since he’d watched Nix in his bunk and all their interactions since had seemed to operate on two distinct levels. As he saw it, they had a choice: they could elect to live by the mostly defined rules of the one, live by furtive glances and the brush of a brotherly hand. 

Or Dick could throw off the blanket and cross the two and a half feet between Lew’s bunk and his. 

He got the feeling Nix was waiting for that. For all his cocky aplomb, in this matter he seemed to defer to Dick. Or maybe he’d been this available from the beginning, and so his submission was less a reflection of doubt than an admirable exercise in patience. 

Of course, there were practical considerations, where and when being the most pressing. In Lew’s eyes, Dick thought he saw the answers. 

He waited until everyone had had at least three drinks, and then he slid his hand up Lew’s arm to squeeze his bicep. “Come on.”

Nix leaned close but didn’t look away from the scene before them. “Where to?”

But he knew – even then, that voice hid nothing from him.

“Just come on.” 

Dick slipped discreetly between bodies and out the door. Soon, Nix joined him in the summer night. They exchanged another penetrating look, and then Nix was following him down a dark, dirt path toward the place they'd been going all along. It was a quiet walk; it was a slow one, as though each wanted to hang on, just a bit longer, to who they were and what they’d been before things changed. 

The small, dark building’s clapboard walls made it blend into the darkness, and they were inside it before either spoke. 

Nix stood in the center of the kitchen, hands on his hips. “What are we doing here? I’m not even hungry.”

Dick ambled across the floor toward him and placed his hands on either side of Lew’s waist. He walked him two steps backward to the counter. Nix looked at him again, and the smirk melted from his face. The only light was the moon through the dingy window glass, and in its pale glow, Lew was timelessly handsome. Dick was awed by him.

“How do you do that?” he asked softly.

“What?”

Dick looked down at their joined hips and felt Lew’s hands slip under the flaps of his jacket. He brought his gaze up to look into his eyes again. 

“You look at me like that,” he began, slowly closing the space between their faces. “And it feels like –“ he stopped centimeters in front of Lew’s mouth. His eyes swept over his face again. “It’s like jumping.”

The smirk slowly came back to Nix’s face. He nudged his chin forward. “Green light, Dick.”

They kissed. They jockeyed for control and gasped for air, fingers pawing at buttons and fabric. Dick pressed his body hard into Lew’s, wedging open his legs with his thigh, and then they began to thrust against the delicious friction of each other's hips. Nix pushed Dick’s jacket off of his shoulders and it fell to the ground with a muted jangle of brass. Dick wrested Nix’s open too and hastily tugged the shirttails out of his pants. All this they did while never breaking the kiss.

“Dick.” Lew’s voice had become ragged and husky. He took Dick’s hand off of his torso and guided it to his belt. 

Dick's hand may have shook; he didn’t know. Something inside of him was shaking as he tentatively pressed his palm to the stiff bulge at Lew’s fly. They had jumped, he realized. They had definitely jumped. 

He unfastened Lew’s belt and opened his pants, but before shoving his hand inside, Dick paused. He looked at Nix again. Now his brow was furrowed and his eyes had a look of both lust and need; he was authoritative at the same time as he was supplicating, strong and vulnerable both, and the contrast made Dick want more of him. All of him. And all of his reservations disappeared. Quickly, he undid his own fly. 

They kissed again. It was the only thing tethering his feet to the earth, he thought, as a strange hand stroked him between the hot pressure of thighs and hips. They kissed, and Dick moaned into Lew’s mouth, and Lew whispered curses and pleas. They couldn’t press their bodies close enough, but they tried, and kissed each other harder, the muscles of their forearms burning as they furiously pumped them up and down, up and down.

Communicating in fragments- 

“Nix, oh god -” 

“Fuck, yes - just like that - ”

\- they flew together, steady on, until Dick sucked in a deep breath and held it, thrusting his hips in one final arc and then feeling Nix’s fingers on his cock become slick with come.

“Dick.”

Stripped bare of all his artful pretense. God, it was beautiful. He began to move his hand again, slowly at first, fingers exploring the smooth, warm skin, the length and shape of him. Dick knew he loved it, as he loved the man. _Silly_ , he’d tell himself later. What a silly thing to love.

“Dick.” 

He’d never grow tired of hearing that tone in Nix’s voice, plying him with its need. Dick never stood a fighting chance against it. He gave Lew what he needed because that was who he was and what he did. Eventually, it would become what he lived for. But even at the start, the seeds of addiction had begun to spread, cast wide with every moan, every rasping breath. 

“Dick.” 

Now urgent. Nix reached behind him to grip the edge of the counter and leaned back, rising onto his toes. Dick followed him down, laying his chest over Lew’s. He brushed his lips against his ear.

“Ready?”

Nix just moaned, a high, desperate sound that lodged itself in Dick's heart. His hips bucked and for the second time, Dick watched his face as he came. 

There wasn’t much to say after that. They reserved communication for glances again, but rather than uncertainty, Dick found only deeper understanding. They were the same faces, the same eyebrows. The same twitch of a smile. They just meant more now, and it wouldn't be long before this new language became their mother tongue.

***

**Part V**

He’d heard there were more than three thousand men on the ship. Over the years he’d grown used to the anonymity, to being one uniform, one number on an endless list of them. But among them there was one who called him by his first name, and it was that one in three thousand who occupied his thoughts tonight. 

When they’d embarked, Nix had been excited, and why not? He’d taken the trip before, and it gave him a nostalgic thrill to relive his adventures in describing them for Dick. But Dick didn’t share his enthusiasm. Unlike Lew, he felt like he was being pulled forward faster than the rest. He felt like he’d grown older in the hours since they’d left Toccoa, and he wondered if Nix would know what he meant by that if he tried to explain it.

But at the present moment, all that was a nebulous, queer feeling thrumming in his chest, from which he now sought relief. Where was Nix? 

“Christ, our refrigerator is bigger than this,” he’d said as he dropped his duffel on one of the beds and excused himself to the club room. “You coming?” he’d asked over his shoulder. Of course he wasn’t. Nix knew, but he always asked just the same. That had been two hours ago and now Dick was bored, restless and alone. He picked up a newspaper and attempted to read.

But soon he heard a soft rap on the door before Lew opened it and stuck his head in. When he saw Dick reclined in his bunk, his face broke into a tipsy smile and he stepped all the way inside. 

“Say, you got some money I could borrow?” 

Dick raised his eyebrows. “That’s something I never thought I’d hear you say.”

Nix chuckled as he flopped down onto his bunk. His eyes swept over Dick’s body, his bare legs and boxer shorts and undershirt, lying on top of the blanket in the cubbyhole made by the shadow of the bunk above his. “Aren’t you cozy.”

One side of Dick’s mouth curved into a smile. “How much did you lose?”

Nix blew a long breath up toward the hair hanging in his eyes. “Three-fifty. But I’ll get it back.”

Dick’s smile widened. “And Harry?” 

A laugh glinted in Lew’s eyes. “That bastard went all-in twice. Won both hands.” 

He stood and began unbuttoning his jacket, laying it out on Harry’s bunk above Dick’s. Where Dick lay, he saw just the space between Lew’s waist and his knees. He watched him undress, inserting listening sounds where appropriate as he described the poker game. When Lew was down to his underwear, he sat down on his bunk again and lit a cigarette. 

“You’re about the only guy I know who actually reads Stars and Stripes,” he said, tilting his head back to blow the smoke up into the air. 

“It’s quality journalism,” Dick said dryly. He folded the paper and passed it across the cabin. “Apparently MacArthur’s doing a cracker-jack job in the Solomons.”

“Oh yeah?” Nix took the paper and scanned the front page. “I’m glad I got the objective word on that.” He took another drag off his cigarette, gazing at Dick over the top of his hand. 

“Hey,” he said softly, extending his leg to rest his foot on Dick’s bunk. “How long’s it been? Two – three weeks?”

“Hm?” Dick’s eyebrows raised slightly and then, realizing what he meant, he looked down at the blanket. It was strange for him to hear it spoken of out loud, and he wasn’t sure how much to say. Somewhere, he still harbored the fear that talking about it would make it go away. 

“Yeah,” he said, picking a piece of lint off of the blanket. “About that, I guess.”

But at the same time it thrilled him, hearing Lew give voice to what they’d done, what they’d both wanted, confirmation that it didn’t exist outside the realm of their everyday friendship, but was an extension of it. That he, too, wanted it to be real. 

“Eight days here.” Nix raised his eyebrows as he dragged on his smoke again, looking around the tiny berth. “Maybe more, depending on the weather.” He slid his foot along the blanket to touch his toes to Dick’s forearm. 

“Lew…” Dick began to lightly rub his palm up and down Nix’s shin. “We have to be careful.”

“I’m careful.” Nix smiled. “You think the army would trust me with intelligence if I weren’t careful?” 

Dick huffed a quiet laugh through his nose. “What about Harry?”

“Seasick,” Lew said. “He’s not coming back down here until he absolutely has to.”

Dick took a long, deep breath, a sound he knew Nix recognized and would certainly exploit. He was depending on it, actually.

Lew stubbed out his cigarette and fixed his patiently confident gaze on Dick again. “Would you like me to come over there?”

Dick smiled, laughed softly again, and nodded. Smoothly, Lew’s body flowed from his bunk to Dick’s, where he lay himself on his side, cheek propped in his palm. “Cozy,” he said again, slipping his other hand down Dick’s ribs and coming to a stop at his hip. 

“Like a foxhole,” Dick murmured, smiling, and closed the space between their parted lips. He kissed Nix for a long time, relishing the weight of his body so near, lying with him like that. He dreamed about it, but he wasn’t sure they’d get the chance. Each time with Nix was a little more like those dreams.

His hand on the small of Lew’s back pressed him closer and they arranged their thighs to accommodate the other’s, and then groaned when they felt the parts align, grinding against the pressure of hips and the hardness between. 

“Dick.” Lew broke the kiss to come up for breath. Dick continued to kiss him, though, and Nix sighed, cursed. 

“What?” Dick murmured. He trailed kisses down Lew’s throat to his collarbone. 

“I want – Jesus.” Nix breathed and moaned as Dick’s tongue traced his clavicle. “Lay down on your back.”

“Why?” Dick kissed his neck again and rolled his hips, pressing his erection against Lew’s through their underwear. 

“Fuck,” Nix said, exhaling. “Because I want to –“ he kissed Dick again, hard and rough. “Just lay down.”

A flash of excitement flared hot in Dick’s stomach, because he realized, finally, what Nix meant. Slowly, he lay down on his back, trying to seem cool. The truth was he’d never done this before. He’d been too shy to ask, and the kind of girls he’d been with were not the type to offer. He felt Lew’s fingertips between the waistline of his underwear and his skin and looked down. Nix’s eyebrows rose slightly in a question; Dick smiled just as imperceptibly in an answer, and then he lifted his hips off the bed.

First Nix just held him in his hand, stroking slowly, rubbing his thumbtip in circles. His eyes met Dick’s for a brief moment and then Dick felt the soft warmth of his tongue dragging slowly along the length of his cock. He moaned and dropped down onto the bed. The effort of supporting even his head was too much when Lew’s mouth felt that good. 

Nix pushed his thighs apart and Dick dropped one foot to the floor. He felt stubble and hair on his inner thighs and stomach, and in between those, the wet heat of his pliant mouth, his firm lips and roving tongue. 

“God... Lew,” he whispered. His hips began to writhe, rolling in an arbitrary, tuneless rhythm. He was entirely in Lew’s control now, body and mind, and the danger and fear of giving it up so easily, so completely, was doing just as much as his mouth to hurtle him toward orgasm. 

He didn’t realize he was doing it, but his hands clenched in fists full of blanket. His knuckles were white with the effort.

“Nix?” he muttered again, trying to give sense and logic to the tide rushing through his body. “Nix,” was all he could say though, repeating it with greater frequency and urgency.

When he was sure he couldn’t hold out any longer, Lew pulled away and pumped his slick hand feverishly until, with a clipped groan, Dick came, clenching his stomach with each pulse. 

He blinked his eyes open again. Nix had crawled up the bed to lie beside him and was gazing down at him with an arrogant little grin on his mouth. Dick didn’t know what to say. He rubbed his palm over the wet spots on his t-shirt and blushed a little, unable to maintain the heady stare. He just felt too naked. But he had to say something.

“Thank you,” he began hoarsely, laughing at his shyness. “I mean, that was –“

“Shh.” Lew pressed his fingers to Dick’s lips and looked toward the door. “Is that Harry? Did you hear –“

“Yeah, alright,” they heard a muffled, familiar voice slurring outside their door. Nix bolted for his bed as Dick hastily pulled his underwear back on. “You enjoy that deck duty,” he called down the corridor as he opened the door.

“Hey guys.” Harry smiled drunkenly when he saw them and stepped on Dick’s bunk to hoist himself up into his. “What’s the good word?”

Nix looked at Dick across the cabin. _“Fuck,”_ he mouthed. Dick smiled, his eyes raking down Lew’s body to his boxers, still bulging in front. _“I’m sorry,”_ he mouthed back. _“Tomorrow”._

Nix nodded, taking a deep breath, and lay down. Dick did the same. They listened to Harry talk about his evening, but continued to shoot knowing glances at each other, careful not to betray too much. Harry was drunk, but he wasn’t dense. Besides, Dick reasoned, it was good practice. And considering how determined they now were to ride this ship as far as it took them, they needed as much of that as they could get.

***


End file.
